Palestinian health officials said at least 45 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza.
Cairo:
Israeli forces attacked Rafah in southern Gaza on Friday, as well as other areas of the enclave, killing at least 45 Palestinians as troops engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Hamas group operatives, residents and military personnel said. Israel.
Residents said the Israelis appeared to be trying to complete the capture of Rafah, which borders Egypt and has been the focus of an Israeli attack since early May.
Tanks were pushing their way into the western and northern parts of the city, having already captured the east, south and center.
Fire from planes, tanks and ships off the coast has caused more people to flee the city, which a few months ago was home to more than a million displaced people, most of whom have now moved again.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 25 Palestinians were killed in Mawasi, west of Rafah, and 50 were injured. Palestinians said a tank shell hit a tent housing displaced families.
“Two tanks came to the top of a hill overlooking Mawasi and launched fireballs that hit the tents of the poor displaced people in the area,” a resident told Reuters via a chat app.
The Israeli military said the incident was under review. “An initial investigation carried out suggests that there is no indication that an attack was carried out by the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) in the Humanitarian Area in Al-Mawasi,” he stated.
Previously, the military said its forces were carrying out “precise, intelligence-based” actions in the Rafah area, where troops were engaged in hand-to-hand fighting and located tunnels used by Hamas.
Last week, the military said, troops attacked a university that served as Hamas headquarters, from where Hamas operatives fired at soldiers and found guns and barrel bombs. It did not name the university.
In the central Gaza area of Nusseirat, the military said soldiers killed dozens of agents over the past week and found a weapons cache containing mortars and military equipment belonging to Hamas.
Some residents said the Israeli attack on Rafah had intensified over the previous two days and that the sounds of explosions and gunfire had barely stopped.
“Last night was one of the worst in western Rafah: drones, planes, tanks and warboats bombarded the area. We feel that the occupation is trying to complete control of the city,” said Hatem, 45, reached by text message. .
“They are receiving heavy attacks from resistance fighters, which may be slowing them down.”
ATTACKS ON KHAN YOUNIS AND GAZA CITY
More than eight months after the start of the war in Gaza, Israel’s advance is now focused on the last two areas that its forces had not yet taken: Rafah, in the extreme south of Gaza, and the area surrounding Deir al-Balah , in the center.
“The entire city of Rafah is an area of Israeli military operations,” said Ahmed Al-Sofi, mayor of Rafah, in a statement carried by Hamas media on Friday.
“The city is experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe and people are dying inside their tents because of Israeli bombing.”
Sofi said that no medical facilities were functioning in the city and that the remaining residents and displaced families did not have the minimum daily needs of food and water.
Palestinian and UN data show that fewer than 100,000 people may have remained in the western edge of the city, which was home to more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people before the Israeli assault began in early May.
Nearby Khan Younis, an Israeli airstrike on Friday killed three people, including a father and son, doctors said.
At the same time, Israeli forces continued a new offensive against some suburbs of Gaza City, in the north of the enclave, where they fought with agents led by Hamas.
On Friday, an Israeli airstrike on a municipal facility in Gaza City killed five people, including four municipal employees, the territory’s Civil Emergency Service said. Rescuers were sifting through the rubble for more missing victims.
In the nearby Beach camp, an Israeli airstrike on a house killed at least seven people, medics said.
Palestinian health officials said at least 45 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza on Friday.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said its office in Gaza was damaged when high-caliber projectiles fell nearby, in an area where hundreds of displaced Palestinians live in tents.
“This serious security incident is one of several that have occurred in recent days; previously stray bullets hit ICRC structures,” the organization said in a post on X on Friday. “We condemn these incidents that put the lives of humanitarians and civilians at risk.”
Israel’s ground and air campaign was triggered when Hamas-led operatives invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli records.
The offensive left Gaza in ruins, killed more than 37,400 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, and left almost the entire population homeless and destitute.
The United Nations said on Friday that it is Israel’s responsibility – as the occupying power in the Gaza Strip – to restore public order and security in the Palestinian territory so that humanitarian aid can be delivered, amid warnings of imminent famine.
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